Wednesday, August 2, 2017

How to use 'että'

A common challenge with the Finnish että is that students often use it the same way as the English that. That means that you either leave it out when you should use it, use it when you shouldn't, or that you use it when you should use joka instead. In short, it should go like this:

I think Anonymous was refering to this kind of sentence:"Olemme suunnitelleet, että tulemme käymään siellä pääsiäisenä, että tekin saatte tavata Aleksein."in which the second "että" could be translated as "in order for you to meet Aleksei, too", even if a more natural translation could be "for you to meet Aleksei, too".

In any case, "että" seems to be used for purpose sometimes. I have little to no exposition to puhekieli, so I have always thought that it was used only in some dialects, but I certainly was wrong since I found this sentence here : https://www11.edu.fi/ymmarra/index.php?moduli=tekstit&teksti=8

First anonymous poster here – yes this is exactly the kind of usage of että that I'm curious and somewhat confused about. Sentences using että that I would translate as "in order that" or "so that" in English. In anonymous2's example, couldn't one also say "... jotta tekin saatte tavata Aleksein"? (... so that you can get to meet Aleksei too) Or perhaps I've also misunderstood how 'jotta' is used)

Anteeksi, että en ole vastannut aikaisemmin! Sorry that I haven't anwsered earlier. You are correct: että and jotta can both mean "in order to", but että also means "that". http://www.kielitohtori.fi/suomen-kielenhuollon-kysymys/mik%C3%A4-ett%C3%A4-ja-jotta-sanojen-merkityksellinen-ero